This publication presents information about the labour force experience of people aged 15 years and over during the 12 months ending February 2007. It presents information about time spent in labour force activities, including episodes of working or looking for work, and time spent out of the labour force.

The statistics in this publication were compiled from data collected in the Labour Force Experience Survey conducted throughout Australia in February 2007 as a supplement to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) monthly Labour Force Survey (LFS).

For this publication, labour force activity over a 12-month period was determined from a more limited set of questions than is used in the monthly Labour Force Survey (LFS). For this reason, the terms worked and looked for work are used, rather than the more precisely defined terms employed and unemployed, as used in the LFS. In this survey, the concepts worked and looked for work are used to determine whether a person was in the labour force during the year. Therefore, this concept is also based on a more limited set of questions than the Labour Force Survey.

Labour force experience relates to a person's labour force activities over a 12-month period. Labour force activity consists of either working or looking for work.

This survey measured the number of weeks people were engaged in these labour force activities during the year, the number of spells of looking for work during the year and the main activity of people when not in the labour force.

NOTES ABOUT THE ESTIMATES

The scope of the Labour Force Experience Survey was expanded in February 2007 to include all people aged 15 years and over. For previous surveys, the scope was restricted to people aged 15 to 69 years. All the results in this publication relate to all people aged 15 years and over, unless otherwise specified. This change has resulted in an extra 1,773,000 people coming within the scope of this survey. Users need to exercise care when comparing the estimates in this publication with previous releases.

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